A hearing on a bill that would bar unvaccinated children from public schools and daycare in Washington state brought out hundreds of spectators, a panel of local doctors—and notorious, carpet-bagging anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The Pacific Northwest is in the grips of a measles outbreak that has already sickened 52 people in Washington and four in Oregon, nearly all of them children. Health officials say the spread of the highly contagious disease—which had been all but eradicated in the United States—is being fueled by parents, sometimes with the approval of their doctors, who refuse to immunize their children.

In January, lawmakers in Olympia introduced a bill, HB1638, they hope will stem the growth of measles and other communicable diseases that can be prevented with vaccines.

Enter Kennedy, nephew of a U.S. president, attorney, author, and an environmental activist who believes vaccines are dangerous—he’s called them “a holocaust”—and that drug makers, the government, and the press are in cahoots to hide that.